sinks with it, în one common grave, the liberty of the subject and the security of the crown. "Gentlemen, I am glad that this question has not been brought forward earlier; I rejoice for the sake of the court, of the jury, and of the public repose, that this question has not been brought forward till now. In Great Britain analogous circumstances have taken place. At the commencement of that unfortunate war which has deluged Europe with blood, the spirit of the English people was tremblingly alive to the terror of French principles; at that moment of general paroxysm, to accuse was to convict. The danger loomed larger to the public eye, from the misty medium through which it was surveyed. We measure inaccessible heights by the shadows which they project; where the lowness and the distance of the light form the length of the shade. "There is a sort of aspiring and adventurous credulity, which disdains assenting to obvious truths, and delights in catching at the improbability of circumstances, as its best ground of faith. To what other cause, Gentlemen, can you ascribe that in the wise, the reflecting, and the philosophic nation of Great Britain, a printer has been gravely found guilty of a libel, for publishing those resolutions, to which the present minister of that kingdom had actually subscribed his name? To what other cause can you ascribe, what in my mind is still more astonishing, in such a country as Scotland —a nation cast in the happy medium between the spiritless acquiescence of submissive poverty, and the sturdy credulity of pampered wealth; cool and ardent; adventurous and persevering; winning her eagle flight against the blaze of every science, with an eye that never winks, and a wing that never tires; crowned, as she is, with the spoils of every art, and decked with the wreath of every muse; from the deep and scrutinizing researches of her Humes, to the sweet and sım ple, but not less sublime and pathetic morality of her Burns -how from the bosom of a country like that, genius, and character, and talents, should be banished to a distant barbarous soil*; condemned to pine under the horrid communion of vulgar vice and base-born profligacy, for twice the period that ordinary calculation gives to the continuance of human life? "Gentlemen, let me suggest another observation or two, if still you have any doubt, as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant. Give me leave to suggest to you, what circumstances you ought to consider, in order to found your verdict. You should consider the character of the person accused; and in this your task is easy. I will venture to say, there is not a man in this nation more known than the Gentleman who is the subject of this prosecution, not only by the part he has taken in public concerns, and which he has taken in common with many, but still more so, by that extraordinary sympathy for human affliction, which, I am sorry to think, he shares with so small a number. There is not a day that you hear the cries of your starving manufacturers in your streets, that you do not also see the advocate of their sufferings that you do not see his honest and manly figure, with uncovered head, soliciting for their relief; searching the frozen heart of charity for every string that can be touched by compassion; and urging the force of every argument and every motive, save that which his modesty suppresses—the authority of his own generous example. Or if you see him not there, you may trace his steps to the private abode of disease and famine and despair; the messenger of Heaven, bearing with him food and medicine and consolation. Are * Mr. Curran alludes to the sentence of transportation passed in Scotland upon Mr. Muir, &c. &c. these the materials, of which you suppose anarchy and public rapine to be formed? Is this the man, on whom to fasten the abominable charge of goading on a frantic populace to mutiny and bloodshed? Is this the man likely to apostatise from every principle that can bind him to the state; his birth, his property, his education, his character, and his children? Let me tell you, Gentlemen of the Jury, if you agree with his prosecutors, in thinking that there ought to be a sacrifice of such a man, on such an occasion; and upon the credit of such evidence, you are to convict him-never did you, never can you give a sentence, consigning any man to public pu nishment with less danger to his person or to his fame! For where could the hireling be found to fling contumely or ingratitude at his head, whose private distresses he had not laboured to alleviate, or whose public condition he had not laboured to improve? "I cannot, however, avoid adverting to a circumstance that distinguishes the case of Mr. Rowan, from that of a late sacrifice in a neighbouring kingdom.* "The severer law of that country, it seems, and happy for them that it should, enables them to remove from their sight the victim of their infatuation. The more merciful spirit of our law deprives you of that consolation; his sufferings must remain for ever before our eyes, a continual call upon your shame and your remorse. But those sufferings will do more; they will not rest satisfied with your unavailing contrition, they will challenge the great and paramount inquest of society: the man will be weighed against the charge, the witness, and the sentence; and impartial justice will demand, *Scotland, from whence Mr. Muir, Palmer, and others, were transported for sedition. why has an Irish Jury done this deed? The moment he ceases to be regarded as a criminal, he becomes of necessity an accuser: and let me ask you, what can your most zealous defenders be prepared to answer to such a charge? When your sentence shall have sent him forth to that stage, which guilt alone can render infamous; let me tell you, he will not be like a little statue upon a mighty pedestal, diminishing by elevation; but he will stand a striking and imposing object upon a monument, which, if it does not, (and it cannot,) record the atrocity of his crime, must record the atrocity of his conviction. Upon this subject, therefore, credit me when I say, that I am still more anxious for than I can posyou, sibly be for him. I cannot but feel the peculiarity of your situation, Not the jury of his own choice, which the law of England allows, but which ours refuses: collected in that box by a person, certainly no friend to Mr. Rowan, certainly not very deeply interested in giving him a very impartial jury. Feeling this, as I am persuaded you do, you cannot be surprised, however you may be distressed at the mournful presage, with which an anxious public is led to fear the worst from your possible determination. But I will not, for the justice and honour of our common country, suffer my mind to be borne away by such melancholy anticipation. I will not relinquish the confidence that this day will be the period of his sufferings; and however mercilessly he has been hitherto pursued, that your verdict will send him home to the arms of his family, and the wishes of his country. But if, which Heaven forbid, it hath still been unfortunately determined, that because he has not bent to power and authority, because he would not bow down before the golden calf and worship it, he is to be bound and cast into the furnace; I do trust in God, that there is a redeeming spirit in the constitution, which will be seen to walk with the sufferer through the flames, and to preserve him unhurt by the con flagration." Upon the conclusion of this speech Mr. Curran was again for many minutes loudly applauded by the auditors; and upon leaving the court was drawn home by the populace, who took the horses from his carriage. Undismayed by power, his course was still unbroken; between Lord Clare and him there existed an unextinguishable animosity; it began in the hall, and did not end in the field-they fought at an early period, and Lord Clare declared on the ground, after one fire, that he had satisfied his own honour; yet that did not diminish the odium, in longum jacens, it remained in their minds. "And gath'ring their wrath like gath❜ring storm, Of the two it is thought Mr. Curran was more inclined to forget, but the temperament of Lord Clare was not so manageable. Mr. Curran's business rapidly declined in the court of Chancery, and fell off to the loss of many thousand pounds, for some years; in truth, he never after recovered it. The discouragement he then met in that court, for which he conceived himself best fitted, was marked by the agents, who would not hazard the great concerns of their clients with an unfavoured, and ill-attended-to advocate. They thought they read in the coun |